Notes and links - 3 Oct

Interesting links, news and footnotes for The Ideas That Explain the News

+ “JD Vance brazenly lectured Europeans about free speech this year, while Rubio was busy setting up an online AI program to monitor non-citizen students to deport them for speech he didn’t like. Now, like a super-woke-lefty from 2020, Vance is urging Americans to report any untoward comments they hear about Kirk to their employers. Get those lefties fired! Vance actually said on Fox this year: “Are we willing to defend people even if we disagree with what they say? If you’re not willing to do that, I don’t think you’re fit to lead Europe or the United States of America.” Why then, one wonders, has Vance not resigned yet?”

Andrew Sullivan excoriating the “Woke Right”. I particularly enjoyed his gag about Chris “Ibram X” Rufo.

+ Usually the top concern for voters is the economy, so I was struck by polling reported in Tuesday’s Daily podcast finding the top issue wasn’t inflation or jobs but the state of politics: “When you cobble all those answers together, you got 36 percent of the respondents in this poll listing a concern about our political system and the health of our politics as the most important problem facing the country, compared to just 21 percent who listed an economic issue, like the stock market or the cost of living.”

+ I wish I could have been in the room to watch Hegseth’s weird school assembly for America’s top generals. Just the idea of such a man-child lecturing 800 serious professional people about being overweight, loyalty and the rest of it… quite a moment.